Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol Special Edition - REVIEW | Review of Death

[@craiglightowler2991]

The sniper "end my life" scene always seems ironic considering his demise in an alleyway in San Francisco in a hail of gunfire....

[@CJFS00s]

( 0:36 ) We need a Pink Lady podcast! 😂

[@danielcox3152]

"Happiness will Prevail"

[@kjmmxii123]

I actually watched this in black and white when it aired, I saw the entire McCoy era on a newly acquired portable b&w TV in my room (having a TV in your room was a pretty massive status symbol if you were a kid in the '80s). It still somehow managed to resemble a multicoloured fluorescent nightmare, which I love about it.

[@spacemcguffin]

Loved the podcast, and largely agreed with your critiques. I liked some of the additions to try and expand the world, but some stuff was just fluff / unnecessary. I felt the Remembrance special edition worked better, and Silver Nemesis was much improved with its pacing.

[@joeyunderwood]

i also don’t understand the hate towards the silver nemesis. i’m excited to get my hands on the special editions.

[@EloImFizzy]

You know Matt and Billy have such low hopes in the new Christmas special when they are giving us three good Who episodes in a row... 😂

[@Kytori95]

Managed to get tickets for Pandorica 2025!

[@HudsonMedia]

It does make me wonder why they couldn’t put some of that VFX budget towards fixing up a story from Season 9 which was left completely untouched interms of updates.

[@benbastianiartmusic1421]

A genius concept really. I swear the whole 'Happiness will prevail' society could have been a movie franchise.

[@Jaketherobonrd]

I watched the special edition version of this story and it was pretty good. I do like the update vfx because my critique with The Happiness Patrol is it doesn’t feel like we’re on another planet, it feels like we’re inside (obviously because this was filmed in the studio) so I have more than appreciation to the update effects because it feels more open and has some world building. I first got Happiness Patrol on vhs from Oxfam. Its a good story definitely and the Kandyman is such a hilarious monster be it controversial or not.

[@TheValeyard92]

The weird thing about the omission of the "Doc..." gag from Remembrance (presumably on the grounds that it's too meta) is that Pete McTighe subsequently made the absolutely horrific inducing choice of ending Silver Nemesis by having Richard and his girlfriend play the Doctor Who theme on their lute and McCoy winking directly into the camera... I think i cringed into a fucking singularity. So, yeah; hated the Remembrance special edition, mostly liked the Silver Nemesis one until the end which ruined it for me, *but* absolutely loved The Happiness Patrol. It's the first time I've watched the story and really got what the fuss was about. Definitely a worthwhile re-edit. That being said; completely agree that all of these have scenes reinstated that feel like it's just for the sake of it that derails the pace.

[@ChrisKeziahHyde]

This is so weird. I watched The Happiness Patrol for the first time the other day and after watching immediately checked to see if ROD had covered it.

[@ftumschk]

32:28 As someone who was a politically-active teenager at the time, there's nothing in the story that could be remotely construed as a satire on Thatcherism, and Helen A isn't a caricature of Thatcher herself. Even the writer, the late Graeme Curry, only said that he might have had Thatcher "at the back of [his] mind" as he wrote Helen A, but only as an example of a hard-nosed female leader. If he'd chosen Boudicca or Elizabeth the First I'd have been none the wiser, as I just don't see Thatcher in the character, with all due respect to Sheila Hancock's excellent performance. Thatcher's most notorious quote was _"And what is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women, and there are families",_ often shortened to "There's no such thing as society". Her point was that it's not the government's job to hold people's hands and tell them what to do, but to allow people to help themselves... which, if anything, was the opposite of what a control freak like Helen A was all about.

[@AlexCollier-o9w]

Hold up. The story is about a company using time travel to sell empty hotel rooms. There's something called the "Star seed" and it's set at Christmas. And the story of Jesus' birth involves a "hotel" that's booked all its rooms. ...oh no.

[@howardnwhite]

Don't aggree about Andrew Cartmell because we hardly saw inside the TARDIS for this season, just because HE did not like it. Missed the console room so much those last two years.

[@AlanBrown-mp3tn]

Happiness does prevail...off for a watch

[@chrise7359]

At the time Happiness was derided and hated by many, seen as a throwback to S24 and a silly indulgence. I loved it then and I love it now. Special edition not needed though, and apart from the odd extra scene and the beautiful CGI, the new pace is hard to enjoy and the original music which was wonderful has been supplanted far too much.

[@matthewwhittles3004]

This is a very cartoony story and feels like something you’d see on CBBeebies. Pretty boring story and I don’t know why they thought it was a good idea for a story.